Thoughts Over Coffee with Shanon from Surviving Childhood Trauma ☕ Join me for a cup of coffee and some real talk about complex PTSD and trauma healing and recovery.
There are many posts on social media that say “a sense of urgency is a trauma response” like Urgency in survival mode can be explained in such a simple sentence … but it is not so simple.
I find myself ready to be done with the stress and discomfort of my recent move which has deepened my understanding of why I respond to discomfort with a sense of urgency.
It has been a month since I packed my home and began on this new journey after 12 years of building safety and security there. It is the longest I have lived somewhere in my entire life and this move shook me to my very core. I have been grieving deeply.
Nothing Is Familiar
Nothing in my life feels familiar: my morning routine is within the flow of a new home, the views from my windows are unfamiliar and lack the privacy I once had, the sounds still startle me into silent hypervigilance as I listen to try and figure out what I am hearing. My new home has character, things that are different and new – but all I see are flaws.
In moving through all of this, I find myself with less mental and emotional space for deeper focused healing (or sharing) as all my energy is going into coping. Right now I am living my healing work every day waiting for my home to feel like home and unfamiliarity to finally settle into comfort.
But I am not fully settling in, not yet, not as quickly as I would like.
How Urgency Protects
I got to thinking about the sense of urgency that I feel.
I have a deep need for everything uncomfortable and unfamiliar to stop feeling this way so that I can feel safe and secure again. I want so badly to feel like I did just two months ago when I was waking up at my previous home.
But that sense of safety takes patience and work to cultivate. I just wish it would hurry up already.
I don’t like feeling emotionally uncomfortable; emotions can feel so overwhelming and unpredictable.
This is why I feel a deep sense of urgency. It is born from my survival mode, it is a protector trying to manage this new terrain and get me back to how I used to feel: more focused, more safe, more in control of myself and my surroundings.
Urgency is about as uncomfortable as the emotions it is trying to rush me through.
I am doing my best to take it slow.
On goes the journey 💪🏻❤️🩹
Looking for Ways to Connect With Other Survivors and/or Receive Support as You Heal?
Survivor’s Circle Peer Support Groups might be just what you need.
These small groups meet on alternating days of the week via Zoom. In these groups, survivors connect, share, and support each other through the ebbs and flows of healing. Attend a session and experience the magical healing that happens when survivors connect and support each other through shit only we can understand.
Hi, I am Shanon and I am a trauma informed, trained, and Certified Peer Support Specialist in the state of Wisconsin. I am also a survivor with years committed to my own trauma healing after being diagnosed with (C) PTSD due to childhood abuse. Additionally, I have a professional and personal history of community facilitation and peer work.
I specialize in helping survivors like you make connections between real time experiences and past trauma wounds, identify and communicate boundaries, create self-care plans that work, navigate big emotions and trauma responses, reparent your inner child, and embody your own self-worth through the healing process with confidence and personal empowerment.
These support groups and 1:1 peer support sessions should not replace professional therapy; they will however provide additional support and information.
I haven’t thought about urgency before. I do feel that often. Urgency for something to be over, urgency to get somewhere else, urgency for my family to come back safely… It makes sense, wanting to return to safety.